460 accident

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Presidio

Presidio

Joined
Dec 13, 2023
Threads
15
Messages
106
Location
Southern Califronia
My GX was rear ended by an accord and I was then pushed into the vehicle in front of me. This all happened while sitting at a red light. My vehicle is drivable but the ABS seemed
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to lock up easily when I had I applied the brakes in another situation. My airbag and seatbelt lights are on even though the airbags didn’t deploy. The GX is a 2018 with 71000 miles on it. Any thoughts on what insurance might do with the damage presented?

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My brother's GX had a similar rear end accident. The immediately visible damage on his was even less. But apparently the hitch acted as a bit of a lever arm and put a crease in the frame. The insurance company totaled it.
 
Roody said:
Frame bent?
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I don’t know yet. The hitch is tweaked. And the back door is bent so that it is open to the elements. I won’t be able to get it to the shop till the end of next week. The officer on scene estimated the accord was doing 30-35 mph. There are no skid marks on the pavement from the accord

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The rear frame crossmember of the GX is a "crash bar" with many large holes drilled in it. I would expect the crash bar is crumpled to some degree, and in fact may have taken most of the impact from the accord (it's intended to bend and absorb energy instead of transmitting it into the vehicle and the occupants). The rear frame rails of the GX are actually kind of thin 1/8" steel, so it's possible the impact coupled with the rigid trailer hitch may have bent them. The rear crash bar is available as a new part for Lexus and can pretty easily be replaced by a body shop (it comes off by cutting a few welds), but if the rear frame rails are bent I'd expect them to total it.

Even if it's not totaled, I'd expect the damage to easily exceed $10K considering you are going to need both bumpers, a rear hatch, paint, and probably some other things as well. If they offer to total the rig and give you a reasonable payment for it, I'd personally take it and find another GX that hasn't been hit. It will take an A+ shop to get it back together anywhere near as good as it came out of the factory, and the color is going to be quite difficult to match as well.

Also I have to ask - distracted driver? Can't imagine any other reason why someone would slam into a row of cars sitting at a red light.
 
Rednexus said:
Also I have to ask - distracted driver? Can't imagine any other reason why someone would slam into a row of cars sitting at a red light.
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I’m expecting it to easily go over $10k. About three and half years ago it was parked on the curb and our next door neighbor pulled out of the driveway and was distracted by her kids and hit the left rear corner at slow speed and that repair was $4k in SoCal.

The accord driver got out of his car and apologized profusely for hitting us and he said I really shouldn’t be driving at this time. And then he told my son that he was having some PTSD issues.

I told the police officer who was writing up the accident report and he said there was nothing he could do with that statement
 
Presidio said:
I’m expecting it to easily go over $10k. About three and half years ago it was parked on the curb and our next door neighbor pulled out of the driveway and was distracted by her kids and hit the left rear corner at slow speed and that repair was $4k in SoCal.

The accord driver got out of his car and apologized profusely for hitting us and he said I really shouldn’t be driving at this time. And then he told my son that he was having some PTSD issues.

I told the police officer who was writing up the accident report and he said there was nothing he could do with that statement
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Wow on the driver. Amazing that he hit you under those circumstances and then admitted fault to your son directly. Multiple lapses of judgement there.

I had the misfortune of being a witness to a collision between a phone-distracted driver and a pedestrian a few years ago - not something I wanted to see but a side-effect of American culture where far too many people either should take driving more seriously or shouldn't get behind the wheel to start with.
 
If you plan on keeping your GX and ever had any plans of upgrading for off roading, now is the time!
front and rear steel off road bumpers,with maybe a winch to boot, are cheaper than replacing with factory plastic.
 
r2m said:
If you plan on keeping your GX and ever had any plans of upgrading for off roading, now is the time!
front and rear steel off road bumpers,with maybe a winch to boot, are cheaper than replacing with factory plastic.
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I hadn’t really thought of that until my other son brought that up the other day. I have an 80 that I’ve slowly been upgrading over the past few years so I’m not sure if I need another rig for that kind of thing.

I see we are both from San Clemente, who knows maybe you’ll see this thing cruising around town…
 
Got my 460 back from Montana Monday and into the body shop on Tuesday. Got the estimate back today for $12,500. I did see that the rear frame crossmember and hitch are going to be replaced, besides all the other bumpers, rear door and other assorted parts.

It appears that it is standard to use non OEM parts for this kind of work. My insurance will only use OEM parts for vehicles less than a year old or less than 15,000 miles on it. I guess you can pay extra on insurance for a OEM parts rider for your vehicles.

My insurance did say that since the other drivers insurance is taking fault I can file a diminished value claim and see if I can get the parts upgraded to OEM. This will probably drag out the process to get the 460 back. The body shop is saying 16 days if all goes to plan.
 
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Is getting a check instead on the table? I know every state is different in that regard, but when my previous Mazda 3 was hit like that (State Farm-insured driver), I got a check in the mail. IMO $12,500 (at least at labor/parts prices around here) should be enough to replace OEM bumpers with aftermarket off road (front and back) and the rear door with a white one from a salvage GX (if you wanted to go that route).

Non-OEM parts are standard for insurance claims, however for Toyota/Lexus, OEM parts are actually not that expensive. My wife's Highlander got clipped in the rear plastic bumper cover (which is a huge part). A new one was $175 from the Toyota dealer and it was $700 to get it painted (tri-color white, which is an expensive paint). However when I talked to body shops they could not order the bumper from their suppliers for less than $250, so I bought it instead. If you can find a body shop that lets you buy the parts, you probably could go all OEM.
 
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Presidio said:
AAA is what I have. The other guy has Farmers.
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AAA is pretty good insurance. Back in the mid 1990's, we had a Previa Toyota minivan at the time and on a trip home from Lake Tahoe, (about 500 miles) we hit a rock that I didn't see. It was about the size of a melon and completely took out our right front suspension on the van, even the control arms. We were still about 400 miles from home.
Since there were no shops anywhere near where we were, I mean, not even as close as a couple hundred miles from where we were stuck, AAA had our van towed (on a roll-back truck) ALL THE WAY back to our home town!
The cost of the tow was more than the repairs, and the repairs were not cheap!
We swear by AAA. Been members for 43 years. Being an active Army reservist, I even looked into USAA, but AAA was still better all around.
 
So I found out today from the body shop and AAA that they were able to get OEM parts from a Lexus dealership for competitive prices to the non-OEM parts and they will be using them for the repairs
 
Presidio said:
So I found out today from the body shop and AAA that they were able to get OEM parts from a Lexus dealership for competitive prices to the non-OEM parts and they will be using them for the repairs
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As has been mentioned, if you plan to wheel it and build it, talk to the body shop about getting aftermarket parts that you will put on, like bumpers, rock sliders and skids and make a deal with them for install. Now is the best time. ;)
 
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